The purpose of "A Short History of Celebrity," Fred Inglis' brief, energetic, stimulating screed, is to tell us that, although we think we live in the age of celebrity, it's been quite a while in coming. When we think of enthralled fans and groupies, media accounts of scandalous behavior and all manner of transgression, we inevitably think of rock stars and tabloids, but the model for all this was set nearly 200 years ago with the defining figure of George Gordon, Lord Byron. When his lifestyle and his poetry combined, feeding off one another till he "awoke one morning and found myself famous," Lord Byron was indeed "a popular idol" — as were actors David Garrick and Edmund Kean before him and, earlier still, the much more sedate icon Samuel Johnson.

Andy Warhol famously said that in the future, everyone would have 15 minutes of fame. But that didn't stop him from focusing his camera lenses and other image-making implements on folks whose ride on the wagon of celebrity figured to last somewhat longer. If you want to have some fun celebrity-watching through Warhol's eyes from now through Tuesday at 7 a.m., you might want to hang out for a while at the website of Christie's auction house, where the first in a series of all-Warhol online auctions is in progress . It's actually the second sale in a multi-year effort in which the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts has enlisted Christie's to liquidate thousands of the artist's works.

More than a dozen celebrities and other high-profile people, including FLOTUS and the vice president, have had personal financial information hacked and posted on a public website - and on Tuesday the list was growing. Kim Kardashian, Mel Gibson, Ashton Kutcher, Jay-Z, Beyoncé, Paris Hilton, Britney Spears, Sarah Palin, Hulk Hogan, Donald Trump and Arnold Schwarzenegger are the celebrities whose names appeared on the site as of Tuesday morning. With them were former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, FBI Director Robert Mueller, U.S. Atty.

A crowd rich in sports legends, Academy Award winners and recording stars packed the Hyatt Regency Century Plaza for the Harold Pump Foundation's anniversary celebration. The honorees at the Aug. 12 event were Denzel Washington, Hank Aaron, Muhammad Ali and Kansas businessman Joseph Brandmeyer. Morgan Freeman, Jamie Foxx, Snoop Dogg and Cedric the Entertainer teamed up to present Washington's award. "If I hadn't played God," Freeman said, "I'd be jealous of the fact that he got to play an angel," referring to the two-time Academy Award winner's role in "The Preacher's Wife.

On the cover of the current GQ, a beaming Drake strides confidently toward the reader, fit and fearless in a $3,100 Gucci suit and $1,590 Tom Ford shoes. Inside, the 25-year-old rapper greets the magazine's reporter poolside at his "lady-fantasy" (her words) compound in the San Fernando Valley. Writer Claire Hoffman gets Drake to reveal cover-worthy morsels about his womanizing (prodigious, now purportedly regretted), his fragile paternal ties and his Internet-fueled entree into the music world.

Britney Spears wanted to slip into something more comfortable. For much of 2007, the pop diva had been on a jag of increasingly erratic behavior: shaving her head, attacking paparazzi with an umbrella, a stint in rehab. And at a party at the exclusive West Hollywood nightspot Winston's, Spears was acting out again. She downed some vodka, befriended a barmaid and convinced the woman to switch clothing with her in the club's restroom — all the way down to her undergarments.

Jason Aldean has filed for divorce, kicking last week's news of separation from his wife up a notch. "This is a really tough time for my entire family," the country singer told Us Weekly in a statement about the divorce, noting that he and Jessica Ussery had been together since they were teenagers - he's 36 now - and had had ups and downs along the way. They would have been married 12 years in August. "I've learned that everyone always rushes to judgement when they hear news like this," he told the mag . "That's really hard because no one knows anything about our relationship but us. I understand that because of my job, I have to go through a lot of this in the public eye, but for my girls' sake I really wish people would give us some level of privacy and at the very least be respectful of them.

Mike Bresnahan covers the Lakers for The Times and ties up loose ends on the day of his self-designated "Lakers game of the week." The Lakers play tonight at Houston: I used to be a sports reporter. You know, write about games and players and teams. Now I don't even recognize myself anymore. I write the name "Khloe Kardashian" all the time, and I'll probably do more of the same for another budding Lakers romance, seeing how reserve guard Sasha Vujacic is dating tennis star Maria Sharapova.

Love it! Beautiful! That's hot! Oh my God, that's amazing! There, do you feel special yet? Apparently, part of celebrity involves having a high tolerance for loudly yapped compliments while cameras are trained on you. On "Double Exposure" (Bravo, Tuesdays at 10 p.m.), which focuses on the behind-the-scenes lives of celebrity photographers Markus Klinko and Indrani, the praise rains down like automatic gunfire: It's hard not to feel the instinct to get out of the way. For eight years, this duo was romantically involved as well, but now it's a strictly professional relationship.

The Los Angeles Police Department announced Thursday that it would take the unusual step of no longer issuing press releases or immediately confirming instances of celebrity "swatting," saying intense media coverage seems to be fueling more incidents. Cmdr. Andrew Smith, who oversees the LAPD Media Relations Section, said the procedural change was necessary because of concerns about the privacy of the victims as well as the belief that publicizing such incidents was emboldening copycats.